Enclosure, Baile Na Bhfionnúrach, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Baile Na Bhfionnúrach, Co. Kerry

On a ridge running south-west from Brandon Mountain in County Kerry, a small drystone hut sits within the remnants of an ancient field system, opening westward into an enclosure barely the size of a large wardrobe.

The enclosure itself measures just three by two metres, and the hut that adjoins it is corbelled, meaning its roof was formed by progressively overlapping courses of unmortared stone until they met at the top, a technique that required no timber and no mortar, only patience and precise stacking. The lintelled entrance is a tight fit by any measure: 0.51 metres wide, 0.7 metres high, and 1.1 metres long. You would have to stoop and turn sideways to pass through it.

The structure was recorded by Judith Cuppage in 1986 as part of a survey of the Dingle Peninsula, and her measurements give a clear picture of something built for utility rather than comfort. The hut itself reaches an internal diameter of 2.5 metres and a height of 1.8 metres, enough to stand upright inside, just. A small recess was noted at the south-east, and above it what appears to be a window opening, which would have admitted a narrow shaft of light into an otherwise dim interior. The whole thing sits within a broader old field system on the Brandon Mountain ridge, suggesting that whoever used this hut was engaged in some form of agricultural or pastoral activity in what is now a remote and exposed landscape. Booley huts of broadly similar construction were used across Ireland for seasonal transhumance, the practice of moving livestock to upland grazing in summer, though no specific function has been assigned to this particular structure.

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